BRUCEB NEWS
Emus And Piracy: The Story Behind The Lord Of The Rings
The painting on the cover of the first US paperback edition of The Hobbit has a lion, a fruit tree, and a pair of emus. There are no lions in The Hobbit. There are no fruit trees or emus. J.R.R. Tolkien was baffled. He wrote to the publisher, “Where is this place? Why...
How To Buy A Cheap Windows PC
Do not buy a slow Windows PC to save a few dollars. If you get a slow Windows PC, you will become bitter and depressed, people will mute you in Zoom meetings, and you will pound...
Mudslides, Undersea Cables, And Fake News
The longest mudslide in history was just reported by an international team of researchers. Huge quantities of sand and mud traveled nearly 750 miles, causing significant damage...
Fascinating Details About Windows 11
Now that you’ve seen the big picture of why Windows 11 exists, let’s go through some of the fascinating details. This could be the most interesting technology article you will...
Windows 11: The View From 11,000 Feet
Microsoft will release Windows 11 later this year. It is an incremental upgrade to Windows 10, with a facelift so it looks nice and a few small changes that mostly appear to be...
Your Credit Card Was Not Used To Buy An Inflatable Motorcycle
Someday soon your email will have a receipt for something you didn’t buy. It will be matter of fact and bland but you’re pretty sure your wife would have mentioned it if she had...
Vaccine Passports And Made-Up Crap
Most of the arguments against vaccine passports are just made-up crap. Like many of today’s social issues, much of the opposition to Covid vaccination certificates is not...
Memories Of A Giant Boulder
Forty years ago this week, I was eating popcorn in the middle of the tenth row at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, and I was having one of the best nights of my life. I...
This Ain’t Our First Vaccine Certificate Rodeo
Before we get to the issues that are being raised as objections to vaccine passports today, there are some lessons to be learned from history about the intersection between...
Why Is A Vaccine Passport So Difficult?
My wife and I traveled to Hawaii a few days ago. It took some close study to figure out the rules: a Covid test within 72 hours of the flight from a small group of approved...
The Three E’s Of Security
Educate. Encourage. Enforce. It’s all about security. That’s today’s job for a small business IT consultant. There’s been a consistent curve to technology adoption over the...
The Evolution Of Computer Consulting
Have you ever had that feeling of working your whole life at a job, great career, helped lots of people, but you realize as you reach retirement that your job has become obsolete...
Colonial Pipeline And The Business Of Ransomware
Ransomware is big business. I mean that in the most boring way possible. Have you been following the news about the Colonial Pipeline hack? There is a nuance that sheds much...
Why Isn’t “My List” The First Thing I See On Netflix?
I had an epiphany the other day about something that has been puzzling me: I expect “My List” to be the first thing I see on Netflix, and it’s not there. I couldn’t figure it...
Our Complicated Relationship With Outlook
We have a complicated relationship with Microsoft Outlook, built on almost twenty-five years of daily togetherness. There are stretches where we work together happily but they're...
Experian Knows Data Breaches, You Betcha!
You know the big three credit bureaus, right? It’s always entertaining to watch the gyrations of the random number they assign to each of us called a “credit score.” It’s the...